MK Uri Orbach (The Jewish Home) said on Monday that the story of Lt.
Col. Shalom Eisner, who was documented striking a Danish anarchist
who provoked him and broke his fingers, was being blown out of
proportions simply because Eisner is a religious Jew.

Speaking in an interview on religious radio station Radio Kol Chai,
Orbach said, “Clearly the fact that it was one of our own [a
religious Jew, -ed.] with an appearance of a settler, brings about an
attempt by the left to tell a story which is bigger than what
actually happened.”

He added, “This is a religious fellow from a religious family, and
while we sit and eat matzah for an extra day because of the Sabbath,
he´s out on the road in the Jordan Valley because of a bunch of
leftists and anarchists from outside Israel who want to harass and
block the road and disrupt traffic. And in the end we´re all ganging
up on him and trying to reduce him to nothing and dismiss him from
the army and impose on him all of Israel’s troubles. It´s annoying,
because this is a person with dedication and he is a good soldier and
a man who returned to the army to serve his nation.”

MK Orbach continued, “[The left] wants to say, ‘Well, look at these
religious guys. They advance in the army and look how it ends up, how
it corrupts them, how violent they are. And this incident was
documented, and who knows how many times it happened without it being
documented, this is the way they treat leftists and Arabs and we have
to stop the religious takeover of the army.’ If the soldier who
struck the anarchist had been a member of the Ethiopian community, my
guess is it would have passed much more quietly.”

Orbach said that “Clearly there is a propaganda game here which is
designed to hold on to the picture [of Eisner hitting an anarchist]
in order to tell a story which is much bigger than a soldier having
hit a demonstrator. These are a bunch of wild people who came to
harass and disturb and not to demonstrate. Soldiers are not going to
demonstrate in Sweden. Swedes do not have to demonstrate here.
Demonstrating is a privilege which is reserved for the citizens of
that certain country. If they want to demonstrate against Israel, let
them demonstrate in Sweden.”

The IDF decided to suspend Eisner on Sunday night, several hours
after anarchists uploaded a video to the Internet in which Eisner is
seen hitting the face of an ISM anarchist with his gun magazine. As
is usual in such cases, the anarchists´ video is edited and does not
include any documentation of their provocations vis-à-vis the
reservist force that had to deal with them on the Jewish Sabbath.
There was no evidence in the video that the anarchist was injured.

Eisner told a confidante after the incident that the leftist he was
seen hitting in the video struck him first, causing fractures in his
hand. In later pictures, his fingers were bandaged.

The incident occurred near Route 90, which runs along Israel´s
eastern border. The anarchists were ignoring the orders of the IDF
force to clear the road.

The anarchists claimed that they were trying to conduct a peaceful
protest by riding their bicycles on Route 90. IDF forces "brutally
attacked" them, they claimed, and three activists were hospitalized
after the event.

On Monday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu joined the chorus
denouncing Eisner and said, “This kind of behavior is not typical of
the IDF´s soldiers and commanders, and has no place in the IDF and
the state of Israel.”